Artifact is becoming Twitter, too

Artifact, the AI-powered news app from Instagram’s co-founders, is adding a major new feature: the ability to post. So far, the app has been an aggregator for news and links from around the internet, but you’re going to be able to add posts directly to the app.

Mike Krieger, one of the co-founders of Artifact, announced the new features onstage in a conversation with Casey Newton at the Code Conference on Wednesday. The new feature is a logical next step from Artifact’s recently launched update that lets users share links. This new feature means you won’t just be limited to links; your posts can include things like a title, text, and photos. The posts will also have unique URLs, which should make them easier to share on different apps and services.

The new posts feature means Artifact will move from being mostly an aggregator to something that could compete much more directly with things like X (formerly Twitter) or Meta’s Instagram and Threads. Artifact’s Robby Stein says the feature will be available in the latest versions of the iOS and Android apps.

Krieger and fellow Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom launched Artifact in January. The company has swiftly added features to the app over the course of the year, including AI-powered article summaries, a text-to-speech feature, the ability to mark articles as clickbait, and the ability to follow writers.